Rare Bird Alert weekly round-up: 21 - 27 November 2012

The week's highlights:
South Uist scores an American Coot ….
….and a Pied-billed Grebe on the same day!
Showy female Desert Wheatear arrived in north Wales
Cambridgeshire hosts a one-day county-first Blyth’s Reed Warbler
Down’s double Buff-bellied Pipits make it to the weekend…
…while Wexford’s Marsh Hawk lingers a little longer too….

It really was beginning to feel as though that was that for the autumn of 2012 this week. A sensational haul of birds ~ though barely any of the cream of the crop were available ~ have come to the varied shores of Britain and Ireland in the past eight to ten weeks of “true autumn” but now, the smouldering embers of a monster haul of star birds are all that’s left as the final month of the year approaches…

….and those embers would have been well and truly doused as some awful weather pushed across the country….deadly floods followed two successive broad Atlantic fronts that brought torrential rain and 70 mph gusts too….

There were a few new arrivals though ~ two of them of the highest calibre, and some long-stayers too. As the week drew to a close, the arrival of colder Arctic air gave those Grosbeaks dreamers some hope to cling on to….

Headline birds
It seems rather fitting that the island that launched an autumn stuffed full of hard-to-get-to megas way back in early September looks likely to be the very same place to round off the autumn with a significant flourish this week.

Yup, leading the way this week, with a spectacular double (in terms of quality of rarity if not appearance) was South Uist (Outer Hebrides), scoring not once, but twice during the Monday afternoon of 26th….

….after some initial tentativeness, the after-dark clarion call was sounded and the presence of an American Coot was confirmed. The bird was reported as showing well on the loch close to Eilean nan Ramh, a couple of miles from Lochboisdale and, if accepted, will become the third record for the Outer Hebrides ~ following on from singles on South Uist and Benbecula in successive years, 2004 and 2005. There was no sign though on 27th.

The first Scottish record came in November 2003, with a bird on Loch of Clickimin, on the Shetland Mainland ~ that bird remained in to the spring of 2004 and returned the following winter. Scotland’s only other record (and only mainland bird) spent just over a week in Dumfries & Galloway in January 2004.

England’s only records came in 1996, the widely twitched bird at Stodmarsh for a fortnight in April of that year and a one-dayer at South Walney on April 17th 1999.

The only other records prior to this one were both in Ireland ~ at Termoncarragh Lough, in County Mayo from November 15th 2010 through to April of last year and, of course, Europe’s first-ever was found at Ballycotton in February 1981 where it drew a crowd from time to time through to early April of that year.

Remarkably, the same day, on the same Hebridean island also yielded another newly arrived visitor from the Americas ~ a first-winter Pied-billed Grebe found on Loch Smerclate, South Uist, during the afternoon of 26th, moving half a mile to Loch na Bagh on 27th. This will be the second record of this, still, really rare waterbird this autumn ~ it will be the 40th record for Britain and only the third for the Outer Hebrides.

The islands’ first Pied-billed Grebe was also located on South Uist and spent over two years around Askernish and Loch na Liane Moire between June 1983 and August 1985, but only really became known about during the autumn of 1984.

Whispered conversations in secret huddles on Scilly saw the exchange of maps and precise directions ~ some twitched it almost as soon as they heard, others waited a while and took the chance to take in a few summer specialities, along with the big rare, in the summer of ’85 and there was no doubt that the pretty loch, with spectacular backdrop and “up-periscope” Grebe provided a very entertaining way to pass midsummer days away….

The only other record for the Outer Hebrides followed along in November 1999, a 14 day stayer on Loch Fada, Benbecula. Scotland boasts a further seven records, two in Argyll, two in Dumfries & Galloway, two in Highland and one each in Aberdeenshire and Forth. Most people have connected with this transatlantic traveller now ~ the most recent British record was in Greater Manchester, at Hollingworth Lake, almost exactly two years ago to the day.

Britain’s first Pied-billed Grebe was found (and filmed) in Somerset, at Blagdon Lake, late December, back in ’63….(all thoughts of bursting in to song in a curios falsetto at this point are to be avoided ~ but I bet the earworm won’t let it lie for the rest of the day…). It was thought to then return in the next five years, last seen at Chew Valley Lake in July 1968.

Four more followed through the rest of the 1960’s and in to the 1970’s until the first widely twitched bird arrived at Radipole Lake towards the end of January 1980 (becoming immortalised, in pen and ink, in “A Twitcher’s Diary”). A spate of twitched birds followed, on South Uist, north and south Wales (between 1984 and 1987) and several very long stayers have followed ~ most notably the breeding adult that hybridised with a Little Grebe at Stithians Reservoir (Cornwall) in the second year of a nearly 900 day stay from April 1993 to September 1995.

Ireland has hosted at least 11 birds, including the most recent record prior to this week, on Lough Baun, up in Mayo earlier this month.

In North Wales a delightful female Desert Wheatear was found along the edge of the local golf course at Rhyl this week. First seen on 23rd and named as a Wheatear, the bird was still present the following day and was quickly re-identified as something all together much rarer.

This will be the second record for Clwyd ~ the first was a photographed male at Towyn on 20th November 1997 (both records have actually occurred with the old county of Denbighshire) and is only the sixth record within the Principality (other records are singles in Glamorgan and Gwent, with three birds for Pembrokeshire ~ including the most recent record to date, a male on Skomer Island on 15th November 2011).

With no reports all week of the Kilminning Eastern Olivaceous Warbler (last seen on November 20th), the spotlight falls on to an Acrocephalus warbler seen and photographed at Ferry Meadowes CP (Cambridgeshire) on 23rd.

The observer initially wondered if the birdmay have been a Cetti’s Warbler but it was quickly established that the warbler was from a different genus. Swiftly established to be a Reed-type, opinion quickly headed down the road to Blyth’s Reed Warbler.

Another RFP bird (“re-identified from photographs” rather than the famous author on raptors, Blakeney Point stalwart and conservationist….) it was almost inevitable that there was some chitter-chatter would follow….the identification was questioned and the merry-go-round continued to, errrr, go round (Large-billed Reed Warbler cited as the contender to usurp the “commoner” option).

The photos appear to show several features that you’d like to associate with the once much-prized annual rare. It does seem rather warm in one images (approaching the colour tones you may expect on a sunlight Cetti’s Warbler) but not all Blyth’s Reeds are the milky tea colour you’d expect.

For the moment, we’ll go with the flow, let Cambridgeshire bask in the warming glow of a county first, and mainland Britain’s latest-ever Blyth’s Reed Warbler ~ the latest mainland bird prior to this was a trapped first-winter at Portland Bill on November 12th 2001, the latest ever record for the UK as a whole, a bird at Quendale, on the Shetland Mainland from November 29th-December 1st 2009.

Those with a few extra years on the clock, this week’s bird in Cambridgeshire will spark memories of a similarly debated bird on the Ouse Washes in December 1987 ~ a decade before the field identification was fully understood (thanks largely to the Warham Greens bird in September 1996), many people headed to the Fens with the hope of returning with a quality rarity under their belts. Sadly, it didn’t stack up and, despite a bit of banana-posturing here and there (probably related to a slightly duff wing), there really wasn’t much in that bird’s favour in hindsight Reed Warbler was the right call.

In the north of Ireland, between on beaches at Tyrella, the two Buff-bellied Pipits remained to 24th (with one still present on 26th) while down south in Wexford, the juvenile female Northern Harrier continued her winter wanderings around Tacumshin on 24th-25th.